Once you buy a movie on Blu-ray or DVD, you should own it, correct? That's sort of the idea behind Walmart's newly announced Disc-to-Digital Service -- if you're willing to pay a fee.
Announced today, Walmart says that the new service will allow consumers to convert almost any existing movie library to digital, all for an affordable price.
Starting Monday, April 16, consumers can walk into any of the 3500 Walmart stores nationwide, with DVDs and/or Blu-rays in hand. From there, pay a small fee and Walmart will make select movies available through the Walmart-backed VUDU service. An equal conversion for standard DVDs and Blu-ray discs will be $2. Standard DVDs can be upgraded to HD for $5.
Once the disc deal is done, it will be available on web-enabled devices, including TVs, tablets, Blu-ray players, smartphones, gaming consoles, and more. A free VUDU account will be needed to access streaming movies.
Of course, consumers will not be able to access every disc under the sun, but you should be able to get quite a nice digital selection going. Walmart's partners at launch will include Paramount Home Media Distribution, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment, Universal Studios Home Entertainment and Warner Bros. Home Entertainment. Walmart says that they will now also offer support for UltraViolet, meaning that customers can access those titles, without having to pay additional fees.
"This service creates a brand new way for consumers to enjoy the content they already own while unlocking the value and investment they've already made," said John Aden, executive vice president for general merchandising for Walmart U.S.
Aden went on to say that he thinks the new service will drive the growth of movie ownership into the future, as well as encourage consumers to continue to build DVD libraries. "We see digital movies as a complement to DVDs," he added.
He also said that the new service should be able to help consumers to enjoy those movie purchases on a whole new level. "We can actually help lots and lots of people in America that have never owned anything digitally to understand what it means to own digital to see the benefits of that," he said. "But in a way that complements the physical DVDs that they already own."
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